The Family Tree Problem Solver: Tried-And-True Tactics for Tracing Elusive Ancestors (36 page)

Some people (for example, Christine Rose, CG, CGL, FASG) focus on collecting information on particular surnames to disperse among a large group of people. That's fine.
But if your goal is to find a link with one ancestral family, you probably will be more successful if you consider their migration pattern, their neighbors and associates, and the people who lived with, depended upon, and cared for your ancestor, even though those individuals may not have the same surname.
Otherwise, you are going to collect drawers full of information that you will never use, and study a lot of people who are not even remotely connected to you.

Mistake 9:
If it looks old, it is probably a primary source.

Just because a record is old, you cannot assume that it is contemporary with your ancestor. A document describing your ancestor may be 150 years old, but if it was created forty years after your ancestor died, how sure can you be that the information is accurate? If your children were to write today about something that you said or did in 1960, would they get it right? Three examples of old records that frequently contain questionable information are death certificates, family stories, and Bible records.

Death certificates are primary sources that provide direct evidence for two pieces of information about a death: date and location — but not cause. You cannot depend on a doctor from the nineteenth or early twentieth century to accurately determine what caused a death. I have also seen examples where a doctor fudged when reporting a suicide or a stigmatized disease in order to protect family members. Moreover, the primary cause of death is not necessarily the underlying cause. One doctor wrote on a death certificate that the primary cause of the man's death was a blow to the head. The secondary cause was another man's wife. Other than the date and place of death, all information on a death certificate must be considered as hearsay. The decedent obviously could not have been the person who wrote the certificate, and the recorder may not have been the one who supplied the information or entered it on the original form. Someone could have made a mistake in spelling or interpretation. We often forget that individuals completing death certificates were likely to be under great emotional strain, and that stress might distort the accuracy of the information they supply. To someone who has just lost a loved one, it may not seem important to remember the deceased person's mother's maiden name.

Traditional family stories have their place and can provide good clues to follow up with research, but they often perpetuate erroneous information. Watch for these common mistakes:

a.
Skipped generations.

b.
Too-recent immigration dates. When there are several generations separating living family members from the family who immigrated, the former may believe that the latter arrived much later than they actually did.

c.
Stories and records from one side of the family that have become confused with those from the other. The essence of the story may be true, but the names and details may not be correct.

d.
Embellishment. The man said to be an Army officer actually may have been a private — or even a deserter.

e.
Historical incongruities and impossibilities. For instance, a Civil War soldier could not have participated in both the Battle of Gettysburg and that of Vicksburg, Mississippi, as was the tradition on my husband's side of the family. The battles occurred at the same time.

f.
Inconsistencies and contradictions. For example, one branch of the family believes great-grandfather came from Germany in 1870, while another has him being killed in the Mountain Meadow Massacre in Utah in 1857.

g.
Omitted females.

h.
Omitted children who died young.

i.
Omitted unpleasant information, such as divorces, crimes, or illegitimate children.

j.
Dubious connections with a famous family of the same name. Bibles are an important source of family records, but unless the events were recorded as soon as they happened, these documents also may be subject to errors and distortions. Bible records may have been copied from an older Bible, or they may have been reconstructed in a new volume from memory. Consult the December 2002 issue of the
National Genealogical Society Quarterly
for an in-depth discussion of Bible records.

Mistake 10:
When it comes to assembling, organizing, and publishing your work, always plan to do that tomorrow.

More and more people are discovering the joy of finding their ancestors. More people are attending genealogical conferences, taking classes, and engaging in research. With so many now working in the field of family history, we have the potential to discover more connections and link more families than ever before. But are we sharing the information we have? Are we so busily engaged in our own exciting searches that we never take time to assemble, organize, and publish our discoveries so that others can benefit? What would happen to our research if something happened to us?

If, for some reason, you couldn't return to your office, would someone else be able to walk into it and know what material should be saved, what should be published, and what should be donated to a society? Will someone else take the time to organize your research if you don't? It isn't necessary to publish a book. Many genealogists have neither the interest nor the money for such an undertaking, but there are other ways to make the fruits of your hard work available to other researchers.

To begin, keep your files, documents, family notebooks, and photographs carefully arranged.
Remember that if you're reluctant to begin organizing your own computer files and the stacks of papers and notecards you've accumulated, no one else will want to do it either. Analyzing, arranging, and typing the material is as much a part of the research process as the actual investigations themselves. Your research is not done until you have properly organized it.

Once your research in a particular area is complete, donate photocopies of your work to your state historical society, or to historical or genealogical societies in the community where your ancestor lived. Submit articles to local, regional, and national genealogical journals so that other people can learn of your successes — and possibly help you further your own research. Please don't let your contributions be lost. That would be the biggest mistake of all.

C
areful analysis of evidence is absolutely critical to the success of your genealogical research. It is probably the most important step. Seldom, if ever, can 100 percent proof be obtained in genealogical research. We must base our conclusions about relationships between individuals on the factual material and circumstantial evidence found in available records. Sometimes a string of circumstantial evidence may be superior to one single piece of material information. When carefully pieced together, reliable data will almost always form a pattern that points either to or away from the suspected relationship. By accumulating information and carefully analyzing the available records, we can reach valid genealogical conclusions.

For this discussion, let's define genealogical evidence simply as anything that indicates that something is true.
Evidence may include written records, oral testimony, or even recorded behavior. Genealogists often refer to two basic types of evidence:
direct
and
indirect
.

Direct evidence
is that information provided by a witness who saw or heard the event, or evidence that in itself conclusively establishes a fact without inference or presumption. For instance, if we find a pension application in which Dr. Morris stated that he was at Mrs. Brown's bedside when she died, that is direct evidence. Other pension applications may include statements from individuals confirming that they attended a certain wedding or funeral. If, in a deed, the grantor stated that he was giving a piece of property to “his son” for love and affection, that statement is direct evidence of their relationship.

Indirect evidence
is that which establishes proof by inference, based on a variety of supporting information, observed behaviors, and recorded data. From such evidence, you can logically conclude that a theory is likely to be true. The connection is proven because all the facts are consistent with one another.

The following exercise will help you check your recognition of direct vs. indirect evidence. Place a
D
after each example that shows
direct
evidence, and an
I
after each example of
indirect
evidence.

1.
An original receipt for the purchase of a coffin, as evidence for the death date.

2.
A will that names a wife and children.

3.
A land partition by the heirs and legal representatives of a deceased individual indicating that each heir will receive a one-seventh part, as evidence of the number of children.

4.
A tombstone inscription that reads: “Willie son of Robert & Susan Clark” as evidence of a child/parent relationship.

5.
A church baptismal record that reads: “Thomas bap. 2 Feb. 1799, son of Samuel & Mary Smith.”

6.
A deed in which Henry Hickman sold land “in the right of his wife, Mahala, widow of Moses Foren” (no recorded marriage can be found for Mahala and Henry Hickman).

Answers (in the opinion of the author)

1. INDIRECT.
A coffin
could
have been built before the death occurred; but we know that during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, coffins generally were not built until they were needed. If the receipt for payment is in the probate file of the deceased, we may logically conclude that the coffin was built at the time of death.

2. IT DEPENDS.
If the will says, “my wife Elizabeth, my son Arthur, and my daughter Jane,” that is direct evidence. If bequests were made to “Elizabeth, Arthur, and Jane,” you may have to look for additional evidence before determining the relationship of each of those individuals to the testator.

3. AGAIN, BE CAREFUL.
You must evaluate exactly what the record says. If the deed says, “Sally Smith sold her
share of the land that she received from the will of her father, John Smith,” that is direct evidence. If the deed says, “William Smith sold the
part of the land owned by John Smith in his lifetime,” you don't know if William Smith obtained his share as a brother, son, or nephew, or by purchase from another heir. Analyze the evidence as given; don't jump to conclusions.

4. DIRECT EVIDENCE.

5. DIRECT EVIDENCE.
Just be sure you know which “Thomas” and which “Samuel and Mary Smith” are identified.

6. DIRECT EVIDENCE.
The law that gives a man the property that his wife inherited after their marriage can be used to establish proof of a marriage beyond a reasonable doubt, even without a record of the marriage itself. Such a record does not provide the date and place of the marriage, of course, but it does prove that the event occurred. In this case, it also establishes the identity of the wife.

Surely you have heard that primary sources are superior to secondary ones. While no one argues that point, there can be a great deal of argument over what constitutes a primary vs. a secondary source.
I believe that what truly matters is not so much whether the source is defined as primary or secondary, but how reliable that source is.
Reliability
is defined by Webster as “proven dependability in producing consistent results.”
Dependable and consistent
. This means that a specific source can be depended upon to produce nearly the same degree of accuracy over time.

Contemporary Bible records, those created at the time of the event, are a reliable genealogical source. This does not mean that every Bible record is correct; rather, it means that genealogists recognize contemporary Bible records as more reliable sources for family information than many other documents. Why? Because people had a vested interest in making those records accurate, and had very little to gain by falsifying them. If a child's birth was recorded on the date it occurred, is the date likely to be wrong, or confused with the birth date of another child? For a person of deep religious faith, falsifying a Bible record might be seen as almost blasphemous.

On the other hand, if there
was
something to be gained by falsifying a record, you can be sure that someone did so at one time or another, perhaps when applying for a pension, or when trying to preserve a family's reputation by misstating the cause of death. It's important to consider why and by whom a record was created in order to evaluate the potential reliability of its contents.

Analysis of evidence is a complex subject. A discussion of this topic that included adequate examples and explanations could take us far afield from my objective, which is to provide explicit information to help you solve specific problems; therefore, I have prepared a short quiz to help you learn how to choose the most reliable source for a specific type of genealogical data. Circle the answer you believe is the best source for the information needed.

1.
If you were searching for the birth date of Jasper Jabberwocky, would you rely primarily on: (a) the birth date engraved on the tombstone, (b) the birth date given in his obituary in the newspaper, or (c) the date given in his application for a Civil War pension?

2.
If you were searching for all of the children of Josephine Crumberwombbie, would you rely primarily on: (a) the will of her husband, Abraham Crumberwombbie, (b) the family records in the Bible that belonged to Josephine Crumberwombbie, or (c) the final distribution of the estate of Josephine Crumberwombbie?

3.
If you were trying to locate the death date of Zachariah Timberbottom, would you rely primarily on: (a) the death certificate from the state Bureau of Vital Records, (b) Zachariah's tombstone, or (c) the newspaper obituary column?

4.
If you were trying to verify the marriage date of Susanna Elvira Busybee, would you rely primarily on: (a) abstracts of church records published in the
New York Genealogical and Biographical Record
, (b) Susanna's application for a widow's pension, or (c) a published genealogy entitled
The Busybee Family and Descendants of Their Hive
?

5.
If you were looking for Philander Freelove's birthplace, would you rely primarily on: (a) an affidavit in his 1818 pension application, in which he described his service with Col. David Shephard's Virginia military company, and gave his birthplace as Virginia, (b) the 1850 census, which lists his age as eighty-eight and his birthplace as Pennsylvania, or (c) the 1880 census, in which one of his children stated that Philander was born in Maryland?

Answers

Again, these are
my
answers, with explanations as to why I made the choices I did. Analyzing evidence is rarely as simple as it may seem at first glance, which is why I chose to give the quiz at the beginning of the chapter rather than at the end. None of these questions was meant to be a “trick” one; rather, I wanted to show the complexity of the subject. When analyzing a record or piece of genealogical evidence, you must consider your past experiences as well as the logical reasons the document was created.

1.
Birth dates were not all that important to many of our ancestors, and our forefathers were often perplexed when government officials persisted in asking for them. However, neither the date on the tombstone nor the one in the obituary could have been given by the individual himself, while the one in the pension application would have been; therefore, we would accept the pension application (c) as most likely to be accurate.

2.
The mother's own Bible record (c) would most likely reflect the most complete list of her children, including those who died young. The final distribution of an estate would more likely list all of the heirs. A will is the least likely to list all the children. There is no rule that says a man must list all of his children in his will, and often he does not. Moreover, all of Abraham's children may not be Josephine's, and vice versa.

3.
A death certificate (a) is an excellent source for two items (and two items only): the date and place of death. The obituary is the next best source because it would have been published near the date the event occurred. Even though the family would try to give the stone carver an accurate date of death for the departed loved one, the tombstone may have been made long after the death occurred. In addition, the intervention of another human being (the stone carver) in the process increases the likelihood of errors.

4.
The widow's pension application (b) is probably the most reliable source here because she would have given the date herself, and her marriage was probably one of the most important and memorable events of her life. If, however, she had a reason to give an inaccurate date, such as in the case of Wayty Parks Couse Woodworth, described later in this chapter, the published church records are likely to be the next most reliable.

5.
While we would probably give more weight to the 1818 pension application because it was a sworn statement given by the individual himself, we would need to consider the issue of boundary disputes that took place between Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia to determine where to look for a record of Philander's parents. We would probably need to check the records produced in all three states, so the answer is (a, b, and c).

Now that we have some idea of what evidence is and why some records are more reliable than others, let's review the steps involved in building a strong foundation of evidence and discuss the terms used in analysis and evaluation.

Let's say that you have found a document, publication, or record that provides information on a family of your interest. It may be a published genealogy, a family group sheet sent to you in the mail, an Internet site or a family tree submitted to an online registry, or a manuscript deposited at a genealogical society. It may be a will — say, a will published in a book or journal, or a photocopy or microfilm of the original. Perhaps you have located a deed, a veteran's claim, a death certificate, or a marriage license. Whatever the source, you have found a piece of evidence. Now what?